I feel that this new study of the 1930s comes at a good time. It is a good distraction from the unsettled times that we are in now.
We can learn from the past and pick the parts that make sense to us and apply that to now. Why not today be the day that we take control of our personal space and prepare our home for possible hard times if they come or not.
I am using the study to bring happiness and interesting information into our home. For the second weekend, I did a pie tasting with my family. The first weekend I baked two different lemon pie recipes from long ago. a 1931 recipe verses a 1950 recipe.
This second tasting we tasted two strawberry pie recipes from the 1930s. The one on the right was the winner and I didn't even get a picture of it sliced.
This is for a small pie, my pie plates are 9 inch across including the outside rim. This pie could be adjusted easily for a larger pie.
I made a simple butter pie crust, however a chilled butter crust pie can be a little difficult to slice when cold. A lard or crisco crust will cut better. This crust was baked and cooled before adding the filling.
Also, a butter pie crust will lift more during baking so it needs to be pricked with a fork before baking. I do not use pie weights but they are good to use. If you have a slightly smaller pie pan you can snuggle that down over the pie crust and flip over and bake upside down and this will keep the pie crust flat while baking.
When food costs are high and the budget is tight then pies need to be only seasonal pies to keep the cost down. Peaches and pears and other fruit when they are in season because that is what they did during the great depression.
Pies were made from whatever was available and can be simple custard pie, sweet potato, pumpkin, and yes the vinegar pie often talked about during the great depression. I will make the vinegar pie this week so we can see what that looks like and how it tastes. There are nut pies and savory pies.
I never spend money on a store bought pie crust because pie crust is only flour, fat and water.
Also a pie is a treat but sometimes it is a meal.
I am not using my dryer during the 1930s study and so I am drying outside and inside depending on weather. This is absolutely helping to reduce the electric bill.
Our electric bill came in the mail yesterday and we have cut our electric bill in half. This is the season that our bill is normally going up so we know that our efforts are working. Another reason we are using less Kilowatt hours is because we also are doing our best to not use our air conditioning.
I saw in the 1930s newspaper an article about using the new window fans to circulate the air in the home and useful for the kitchen as well in rooms that are hot.
So now we are using window fans and we are pulling the cool night air in during the night and moving the fans during the day to whatever window is in the shade. As the sun moves throughout the day we keep the fan in the cooler shady side.
The only time we have had to turn on the air conditioning is this past week for about two hours in the late afternoon. We have been above 90 degrees (32.2222 C) and I know that hotter weather is coming but we are doing this as long as possible because this has caused a great reduction in Kilowatt Hours.
If I were younger and did not have heart issues, I could handle the heat without air conditioning because I lived many years without it when I was younger and I know that our body can get use to living warmer than we do today.
I put the fan in the shaded side of the house this morning and I cannot believe how cool 83 degrees feels. It will get hotter this afternoon and I will follow the shade and move the window fan to another side of the house this afternoon.
The house is more humid and we feel sticky so washing up from the washbowl off and on during the day helps. It takes work to live like the past and it can get uncomfortable but part of our high bills today is because we have become spoiled to using items to give us comfort with a high cost.
We need to experience being hot so we know how to cool our body when needed. Power outages can happen and do happen at all times of the year.
I am now counting the months until is gets cool again and paying more attention to the weather.
In the past before all of these things we have today, people adjusted to the seasons and felt the changes more than we do today because many of us live in homes with central heat and air and they both stay on all the time.
What we are missing is the wonderful cool breezes that come off and on through the day. We miss many things when we live closed in as many do today.
Our garden plants are growing up the trellis's now, we are getting blooms and some baby cucumbers, baby beans, the squash are still putting out male blooms so not time yet but soon.
Eggplant and basil seem to be doing well together.
We are eating simple meals such as this pork, zucchini, and mac and cheese. We have reduced the amount of meat that we are eating and I am working on a new weekly menu.
Another thing we have changed is our lighting. I want to be sensible about this and I had to choose from the romantic thought of candles and oil lamps verses modern lighting.
Today electricity is expensive and so is lamp oil and candles. We are in a real time of needing to reduce our expenses and so were our ancestors during the 1930s.
Today we have the option of solar light bulbs but we must charge them by the sun so they do not cost to use them. Today many people think that a light bulb does not cost much to use because they go by the small price per kilowatt used but never consider several bulbs being used and for hours at a time.
We are going to use solar bulbs through the study because it makes sense for the real time we are living. I am working on a way to make them less modern but that is for another post.
I could light this oil lamp as I have done many times but since I am trying to save money I have put a solar light bulb on top of my oil lamp. These smaller expenses add to the household expenses.
There was electricity, lights and lamps in the 1930s but not everyone, and for another reason.
I received an email from a dear blog friend and there was a photo included of a mother sitting in a chair with her three children standing next to her and the youngest in her lap. They were living in a three room house in the late 1930s. Just like many people they were still struggling, her husband had a good occupation but he had not worked a full work week in five months.
The mother strung tobacco bags and made $7.00 per month to be able to buy clothes for the children. Their grocery bill was $5.00 a month, their rent $12.00 and light bill was $2.40 per month. Their lights had been cut off because they could not pay that bill and very common during the great depression.
I noticed in the photo a simple wooden china cabinet with her modest but pretty white dishes and a cloth edged fabric or paper hanging over the edge of the cabinet shelves. It felt the way they were placed that her dishes were precious to her and that she could make her small apartment look nice. Her children were not wearing shoes but they were clean and their clothing was clean, her small space that they lived was clean for there did not seem to be much furniture that they had.
They were a young family, I am older and my white china cabinet is full of china and dishes passed down to me from Grandparents, Parents, and Aunties no longer here. I would rather have them still here than a full china cabinet, I miss their presence and laughter, hugs and and life experiences with them. This is what is important.
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When we do these history studies as this 1930s during the great depression years, we gain so much practical knowledge. It truly feels more real to live this way, and we got out of debt and paid off our house and car by sticking to a more old fashioned life. This study can be started at any time, there is no exact starting point, just jump in at any time and start learning about the 1930s.
I only tell you what I am doing here and I take bits and pieces and try to do them and so can you.
We have repeated some of our studies and it always surprises how much more there is to learn and how much more that we still can do to save money.
Do not ever just follow what other people are doing, many of them are deeply in debt and this is not a good time to be deeply in debt. Why not do a history study and live "like" the past.
You can research at the library, you can research online. Look for information all the way back to 1850 because these are the years that many of the older people in the 1930s started their life. It will open a whole new world of understanding.
We most often hear or read all the bad things about the past, newspapers and radios often reported more on the bad things than the good things like they do today. There are many good things to learn.
I hope to see you in the forum, let me know what you have been doing at your home.
Is there anything you would like to know about that I might could help you with your study? Just ask me
I will be starting a sewing project soon, 1930s panties. I need some new ones so I figure why not? Here is a link below to a video of a lady sewing a pair of 1930s panties. Mine will be cotton and possibly a bit more like a bloomer. I will end up with something interesting, that is for sure. : )
Grandma Donna
